Lance Armstrong’s former teammate Tyler Hamilton appeared on Today with Matt Lauer this morning to promote his new book “The Secret Race”, which is sadly not about Blasian females. Instead, subtitled “Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs”, it’s a book about his cycling career, and the only thing more boring than watching cycling is reading about it.

But Hamilton, who is a proven cheater after testing positive for PEDs three times while a member of the U.S. Postal Service team, now conveniently claims that he has the “smoking gun” when it comes to proving that Armstrong cheated just like the rest of cycling’s biggest stars. Hamilton said that he knows why Armstrong has allegedly lied for so long, because he’s an expert liar and can smell his own.

“This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,’’ Hamilton told Lauer Wednesday. “I lied for a long, long time. There was sort of an omerta. People really encouraged me not to speak. I planned to take this secret to the grave. There was a federal investigation, and I sat up there in front of the grand jury and told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’’

Armstrong has already released a statement about Hamilton’s new book, and the abridged version is: “How convenient.” Whatever.

Yesterday, I was listening to a stand-up comedy station on Pandora and treated to a clip from George Carlin’s 2008 TV special, “It’s Bad for Ya!”, and I was a little upset that I hadn’t thought about it when the big Lance Armstrong news broke on Aug. 23. Then again, I’m happy if I can remember last night, let alone something I watched 4 years ago. Either way, I think Carlin perfectly summed up how some people feel at this point.

I appreciate and respect what he’s done for cancer research. But I also appreciate Carlin’s point that people can’t tell me who my heroes are. Unless I missed the part where he said, “… and his cancer research.”

He raised $500 million for cancer awareness, not research. $480 million of that money went into livestrong, which in turn propped up Lances image. Livestrong was getting completely out of research, it spent most of its money on marketing. That charity was terrible. Awareness charities are cop outs.

Evil Twin hit on it. Everyone hates Barry Bonds (who gave money to charity) and a long list of other proven dopers, many of whom gave millions to charity. But Lance successfully tied his cancer and his career to one of the most recognizable charities on the planet. He passed a magical point where he basically bought the good will of many people. The allegations against him go far beyond the words of one proven liar. But many people don’t care because he’s Lance. Barry Bonds, A-Rod, Alberto Contador (hahaha no one knows any other cyclist than Lance) are bad because they doped. That was their mistake. They should have gotten cancer first, survived, founded a charity, and built a career on wins, some of which were likely obtained through doping.

Yeah I couldn’t give a fuck if you cheat at sports as long as you use your fame and money given to you by stupid hero worshippers for good in the world. As far as I’m concerned Lance is a fucking Saint.

a saint? really? i think he’s just about broke even on this one. he’s not a fucking pauper. he’s done very well out of his career. and raising $500m for “awareness” whatever the fuck that is. i was well aware of cancer before this guy. where did the fucking money go? charity, my fat ass.

I remember when Carlin was funny. His last two specials, including this one, were just atrocious. An old man griping about things in the way your grandfather would. The biting caustic look at society that made him famous was gone, replaced by someone whose mind had slipped.